Saturday, 11 June 2011

The leading German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung appears - rightly - to be wondering about the future of the euro - and the EU co-operation in general:

"Instead of being the motor of European integration, the single currency now looks more like a bomb ticking away within the EU.""Amid the sea of uncertainty, only one thing is certain: The EU is at a crossroads. It has become clear that the economic and monetary union does not have the tools at its disposal to act quickly and decisively in crisis situations. The crisis also shows just how far the financial and economic interdependence of the EU's member states has developed in recent decades. Countries are happy to receive the advantages of this integration, such as free movement of labor, development funds from the Brussels pot or low interest rates on the capital markets, even for highly indebted countries. But they also like to circumvent those things that they should accept in return, such as fiscal discipline and tougher competition. Only now has it become clear to everyone that you cannot simply pull threads out of the fabric of European integration without risking tearing the entire thing apart."